Even though that which is beyond time and space cannot possibly be conceived, we are required to meditate on it, trying to understand as much as the mind can grasp.
To be sure, this may be said to be true of anything man endeavors to comprehend: true understanding is a gradual process of learning.
Schoolchildren are not required to understand all the information they absorb and repeat.
Meditation, as it is used here, refers to a certain mulling over and contemplation, a process of thinking about and absorption until understanding comes.
This does not mean that as a result of meditation, the subject is fully grasped.
It simply expands the field of cognition, so that everything thought about, including one's ability to understand, becomes clear.
The object under scrutiny passes the stage of words to the stage of contemplation.
It has been said that no two people ever contemplate the same thing from the same plane of inquiry.
Yet each person can, with his own faculties and within his own limitations, reach a certain clarity of understanding.
For instance, a child being taught mathematics can grasp addition and subtraction clearly enough so that he can be quite adept at it.
A theoretical mathematician will study the inner laws and processes of numbers and eventually attain a higher degree of comprehension.
Obviously, the understanding of each is of a different order, but the clarity is the same.
It is the lucidity of perception that makes it possible to work creatively with the knowledge attained.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From In the Beginning by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz